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“We.”
Mater spoke from the sofa. “I do like the changes you’ve made in this room. It feels as though it were made to serve all these purposes, notforcedto.”
“That was our goal,” Sarah said. “I think we ought to consider offering our services to others. ‘Harold, Sarah, and Gillian: Room Rearrangers.’”
They all laughed.
“I confess, my expertise is best applied in the out-of-doors,” Gillian said. “Perhaps we could work that into our offerings.”
That brought Scott’s gaze to the windows and the overgrown and neglected grounds beyond.
“Never fear, Scott.” She had apparently noticed where his gaze had traveled. “The grounds will be set to rights eventually.”
“I feel like we’re waiting for so many things to happeneventually.”
She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “It will be worth the wait.”
“Oh, Mater!” Sarah hopped off the chair she’d been sitting on and crossed to Scott’s desk. “Did you see what Mr. and Mrs. Tanner saved for us?”
She pulled from the bookcase behind the desk the painting Scott had discovered there upon his return to Sarvol House the day before. Excitement emanating from her every movement, Sarah brought it back to the lady who had been a mother to both of them in so many ways and set it in her hands.
“My uncle would have destroyed it; I know he would have. The Tanners hid it from him, and Gillian found it again yesterday.”
Scott lifted Gillian’s hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. He did that so often, it felt almost as if he’d been doing it forever.
“I like having a face to put with your memories of your father,” Gillian said. “And it is nice to know what your mother looks like.”
“I wish I could tell you that someday you will meet her. I’m beginning to make my peace with the fact that I’m not likely to see or hear from her again.”
“For your sake, I hope that doesn’t prove true. No matter what she chooses, it doesn’t change the wonderful person you are. You need to know that.”
“Both of us have had to learn that, haven’t we? That our worth is not determined by how we are treated by those who should be kinder to us.”
She nodded.
From beside Mater on the sofa, Mrs. Brownlow said, “The arrangement of furnishings in here allows for so many things to be done. And yet there’s still room enough that if a person wished to undertake a bit of dancing, he certainly could. I would not have guessed a drawing room of moderate size could accommodate so many things.”
“A dance, do you say?” Scott took a step away and turned back to face Gillian. “I have heard rumors that you are rather exceptional at the waltz.”
She smiled broadly. “I’ve been known to waltz now and then.”
“What a shame we haven’t any music,” Sarah said, watching them closely.
“Never fear,” Harold said. “I know a great many songs.”
Sarah shook her head at him. “Those kinds of songs are not meant to be danced to.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Harold made quite a show of being offended. “I am a very respectable vicar. Are you saying thatIwould choose inappropriate songs?”
“Yes,” Sarah and Mater said in unison.
There was a story behind that. Scott suspected he would hear it eventually.
Mr. Tanner stepped inside the drawing room. “The Earl of Lampton and Mr. Layton to see you, sir.” Having made his announcement, he stepped from the doorway to allow the unexpected visitors to enter.
Philip and Mr. Layton stepping into Scott’s ramshackle drawing room looking resplendent enough to have been arriving for a soiree among theton’smost influential people might have made Scott feel embarrassed only a few weeks earlier. He’d learned to see things more clearly since.
“I found this gentleman loitering around the Park,” Philip said, motioning with his thumb toward Mr. Layton. “I’ve brought him here to see if the lot of you could sort him out.”
